Free whitepaper The State of Application Development Report 2018/19: Local Government

iProov, a London based facial recognition firm supported by Innovate UK, is the first overseas company to be awarded a contract to tackle border security in the United States.

iProov will help the US Department of Homeland Security to accurately and reliably identify travellers at airport checkpoints and other border crossings.

The facial recognition technology will be used to speed up border crossings at unmanned ports of entry. Travellers will be able to self-identify on a mobile phone by authenticating against a pre-registered photo.

iProov’s technology is able to detect so-called ‘spoofs’ or people trying to trick biometric sensors using a fake photo, screen image or doctored video.

Andrew Bud, chief executive of iProov, said, “We are delighted that iProov has been selected by the US Department of Homeland Security to enhance the way in which it processes people through US borders.”

Bud added, “Advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence have enabled a revolution in facial biometrics in the last few years. We’re now seeing more and more cases of governments and banks turning to self-service, spoof-resilient face verification as the biometric of choice to both increase security and ensure ease of use.”

Facial recognition technology is not without its issues. Last week the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee’s report on Biometric strategy and forensics services examined some of the issues that the government’s Biometrics Strategy should take on board before it is published in June.

The report said, “Facial image recognition provides a powerful evolving technology which could significantly help policing. There are concerns, however, over its current use, including its reliability and its potential for discriminatory bias. We welcome the government’s assurances that the technology is only being used at the moment for targeting those on ‘watch lists’ rather than as a blanket approach.

“The technology should not be generally deployed, beyond the current pilots, until the current concerns over the technology’s effectiveness and potential bias have been fully resolved. Ministers and Parliament, rather than the police, should take the final decision on any wider deployment. The Biometrics Strategy should include an undertaking that the House will be given an opportunity to debate and vote on the issue.”